Building a mentally fit workforce

From fragmented benefits to whole-person wellness Kohler Co. has long been a leader when it comes to addressing associate mental health needs and well-being. As early as 2018, the wellness team adopted point solutions and built new initiatives to support associates and respond to an increase in associate mental health issues. Erin Schad, Kohler’s Wellness Program Manager, spearheaded one of Kohler’s earliest initiatives: the “#IWILLLISTEN” campaign. It began as a small, local grassroots walk in Wisconsin. “We were expecting maybe 50 people, we had some donated sandwiches, and a megaphone ready to go. And 400 people showed up. That was the moment we realized we’d tapped into something larger.”

Today, the event spans 37 locations across every continent and unites over 4,000 associates. Spurring global awareness was a massive win, but Kohler soon realized that sustaining it required a more unified infrastructure.

Promoting whole-person health from the ground up Under the existing, fragmented mental health benefit, scaling their efforts had challenges. Recognizing that workplace burnout impacts physical and mental health, Kohler leadership sought a centralized partner to integrate into their management, safety, and people teams. In 2025, Kohler selected Lyra as its single-point partner to build a unified culture of whole-person care.

Working with Lyra, Kohler developed a 42-page Leadership Guide for Supporting Associate Mental Health & Safety playbook alongside leader-led podcasts. “Leaders wanted something clear and consistent as a resource to help guide them when mental health concerns come up at work,” shared Erin. “This guide is meant to be a practical playbook, not a theory document.”

By training managers across the globe, Kohler helped evolve how leadership approaches team health—normalizing mental health conversations, establishing consistent cross-regional standards, and eliminating trust gaps.

Data-driven reporting with Lyra Connect Two years into the partnership with Lyra, Kohler’s utilization of the benefit continues to grow. Leveraging the updated Lyra Connect dashboard multiple times a week, Erin and her team extract actionable utilization insights. “I’m really focused on connecting the Lyra data back to our annual report meetings with our other vendors. It’s been helpful to have a discussion around what we’re seeing across the medical plans, top conditions, and top behavioral health claims, and see what’s happening in Lyra Connect that might help us tell a more accurate story with the data.”

This unified data approach helps paint an accurate, holistic picture of the workforce for Kohler’s leadership while correlating real-world workplace changes with immediate shifts in clinical care needs.

Navigating the future with Lyra’s Workplace Strategy Blueprint To validate its progress and unearth hidden structural demands, Kohler was an early adopter of Lyra’s Workplace Strategy Blueprint assessment tool, completing both core evaluations: Promoting Mental Health at Work and Protecting Mental Health at Work.

“What stood out right away is how the report meets people where they are,” said Erin. “For those who connect with data and metrics, it provides scores across three key areas, along with an overall score for your organization. It’s also color-coded, which makes it intuitive and accessible for people who process information more visually. It becomes a real springboard for future planning.”

The Workplace Blueprint’s framework provided objective validation of Kohler’s established successes to share with executive leadership, while simultaneously highlighting areas of improvement paired with customized, pragmatic recommendations from clinical experts. This diagnostic assessment will help set Kohler’s multi-year mental health roadmap.